Carroll County Almshouse and Farm, also known as the Carroll County Farm Museum, is a historic farm complex located at Westminster

Westminster, Maryland

Westminster is a city in northern Maryland, United States. It is the seat of Carroll County. The city's population was 18,590 at the 2010 census. Westminster is an outlying community within the Baltimore-Towson, MD MSA, which is part of a greater Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia, DC-MD-VA-WV...

, Carroll County, Maryland

Carroll County, Maryland

Carroll County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maryland. In 2010, its population was 167,134. It was named for Charles Carroll of Carrollton , signer of the American Declaration of Independence. Its county seat is Westminster....

. It consists of a complex of 15 buildings including the main house and dependencies. The 30-room brick main house was originally designed and constructed for use as the county almshouse

Almshouse

Almshouses are charitable housing provided to enable people to live in a particular community...

. It is a long, three-story, rectangular structure, nine bays wide at the first and second floor levels of both front and rear façades. It features a simple frame cupola sheltering a farm bell. A separate two story brick building with 14 rooms, houses the original summer kitchen, wash room, and baking room, and may have once housed farm and domestic help. Also on the property is a brick, one-story dairy with a pyramidal roof dominated by a pointed finial of exaggerated height with Victorian Gothic "icing" decorating the eaves; a large frame and dressed stone bank barn

Bank barn

A bank barn or banked barn is a style of barn noted for its accessibility, at ground level, on two separate levels. Often built into the side of a hill, or bank, both the upper and the lower floors area could be accessed from ground level, one area at the top of the hill and the other at the bottom...

; and a blacksmith's shop, spring house

Spring house

A spring house, or springhouse, is a small building used for refrigeration once commonly found in rural areas before the advent of electric refrigeration. It is usually a one-room building constructed over the source of a spring. The water of the spring maintains a constant cool temperature...

, smokehouse

Smokehouse

A smokehouse is a building where meat or fish is cured with smoke. The finished product might be stored in the building, sometimes for a year or more.-History:...

, ice house, and numerous other sheds and dependencies all used as a part of the working farm museum activities. The original Carroll County Almshouse was founded in 1852 and the Farm Museum was established in 1965.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 in 1975.

Carroll County Farm Museum

The Carroll County Farm Museum provides the public with the opportunity to experience mid-19th century rural life. It was the first of its kind in Maryland; it opened its doors to the public for the first time on August 13, 1966. Exhibits support the Museum by presenting artifacts with appropriate interpretation, both to show how they once looked, and how they were utilized by farmers and their families in the history of agriculture in Carroll County. Visitors are given the opportunity to explore the collections of horse-powered machines and farm implements used for plowing, planting, and harvesting during the 19th century. The grounds include a croquet lawn, a fish pond, and an heirloom garden. The grounds have hosted the Maryland Wine Festival since 1985.

External links

• Carroll County Almshouse and Farm, Carroll County, including undated photo, at Maryland Historical Trust
• Farm Museum website